5 ms·

I live in NJ now, but grew up in Northern VA, and went to school in southern VA. I went back there a little while ago, and realized something. Bare with me, i

I live in NJ now, but grew up in Northern VA, and went to school in southern VA. I went back there a little while ago, and realized something. Bare with me, it's a half-baked theory, but I think it may be on to something. There are a lot of anti-intellectual places in the US. They drive out their smart people, who don't want to hide their intelligence on a daily basis. They have to leave: every time you hear a nonsensical but popular argument, it hurts not to say something. You can only do that for so long. Now some choose to stay, mostly by learning to suppress (or avoid learning/thinking about) intellect in many areas, and then focusing all that in a small area. That way, they can fit in with everyone else at 90%, and fit in other people's ontologies as |normal +x|. Of course, that means living a mostly-lobotamized life. My concern with Silicon X-type articles are when they're happening in areas that may be anti-intellectual. Are these funding vehicles for the few "closet intellectuals" (if you'll forgive me for using the term) who don't want to leave, combined with a larger population who only see the outputs (jobs, spending, fame, etc.) without understanding or caring about why the original Valley formed?

pnathan 14y ago
I can't agree with this hard enough. There is an anti-smarts culture in parts of the US (in passing, this may not be about geography, but about social circles you/we exist in), and if you demonstrate your smarts, you are... other & alien. Things like having hobbies outside of a particular circumscribed area (sports, cars, $current_music, etc.) are the province of the "others". And when you drink from the cup of knowledge in an area, it simply becomes hard to stay in that place. So we leave. We seek out the company of others in our particular in-group and revel in not having to be untruthful about ourselves. I'm reasonably sure this holds true about things besides intellectualism, but my readings in sociology are not close to deep enough to recite citations.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
simmons 14y ago
There certainly exist places like you describe. However, would regional urban centers like Des Moines and Omaha really fall into that category? Des Moines is no San Francisco, but I would expect it to be on the receiving side of any sort of intellectual migration away from rural, economically depressed areas.
- 27182818284 14y ago
  Yes, but it is in two parts. You migrate to a place like Omaha or Des Moines from rural places like you said, but then after an education people traditionally left those places for the even bigger cities like the Twin Cities, etc. That said, effort by various colleges and city governments has gone into the brain drain problem for years so the drain has been declining. You can see marketing campaigns like http://lifeisright.com/ http://lifeisright.com/ for various cities to try to promote staying put.
BobbyH 14y ago
I also grew up in Northern Virginia. I now live in NYC. I hadn't considered the broader effects of this sort of migration, until I recently read "The Big Sort", a brilliant book written in 2009 that describes how like-minded people are "sorting" themselves through migration. One way to quantify this effect is to look at the number of "landslide counties", i.e. the number of counties in the US that preferred a presidential candidate by more than 20%. You can see a map showing how these landslide counties have sharply increased here (the top map is from 1976, and the bottom map is from 2004): http://www.thebigsort.com/maps.php http://www.thebigsort.com/maps.php What's happening is that voters are moving with their feet to be with more like-minded people. This skews many counties towards a particular direction (either Republican or Democrat). Further, as counties tip one way, the minority viewpoint gets suppressed in just the way you described (e.g. if you're a Democrat, why bother voting for Governor in Texas). One thing that surprised me in the book is that not every state is homogenous. The author lives in Austin, so he spends a lot of time talking about how all the liberals move to Austin (and conservatives move out). So even in the bastion of Republican Texas, there is a liberal enclave. Looking at Des Moines, it seems that Des Moines is a similar liberal enclave. For instance, in 2008, Des Moines, Iowa voted for Obama over McCain with a 23% margin: http://www.city-data.com/elec08/DES-MOINES-IOWA.html http://www.city-data.com/elec08/DES-MOINES-IOWA.html So it seems like there are a fair number of liberal enclaves in conservative states. To give another example,"The urban core of Kansas City consistently votes Democratic in Presidential elections": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City,_Missouri#National_political_conventions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City,_Missouri#National_... So even if it's true that "Silicon X'es can only happen in liberal pro-intellectual areas", there seem to be enough liberal enclaves in conservative states that Silicon X'es could possibly arise.
- tareqak 14y ago
  Sounds like someone sufficiently motivated enough could use something like https://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/elections/data https://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/elections/da... to predict or promote more Silicon X'es. Caveat: just looking at one characteristic of a given geographic location (voter preference) is definitely limiting though. Edit: added the caveat.
sputknick 14y ago
My family is all from South western VA (250+ years), I grew up in Northern VA, I still live in Northern VA. I agree with you 100% and it breaks my heart to say so. I would love nothing more than to move back down there to raise my family, but my talents would just be wasted. I think this, much more so than "greed" is what is leading to the growing income inequality in America. The intelligent people are living with intelligent people and having intelligent babies, who grow up to have intelligent babies with the intelligent kids down the street. I'm still not sure if this is a bug or a feature.
firefoxman1 14y ago
It's amazing how different Northern VA people are, to the point they don't want to be associated with the southern half of the state. It doesn't really seem to be a North vs. South attitude either, it's more of an intellectual vs good-ol-values battle. It seems like that's the main reason why where I live in Southern VA has all of about 2 tech companies and zero startups, and Blacksburg (right next door) even being home to the state's largest technical universities has very limited startup activity.
crwls 14y ago
Native Iowan, here. And my first post, long-time lurker. I sincerely believe your "anti-intellectual" comment to be misguided and uninformed. For a quick and entertaining rebuttal, I'd direct you to this NPR youtube video titled "Iowa Nice": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLZZ6JD0g9Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLZZ6JD0g9Y If you'd rather not watch the clip, here are a few things you might not have known about Iowa that may cause you to revise your previous assumption (or not, and they may/may not be extrapolated to other midwest communities): - Iowa has voted Democratic in 5 out of 6 presidential elections (now 6 out of 7). - Iowa was the second (or third) state to legalize gay marriage. - First woman lawyer in the US emanated from Iowa. - 4 out 5 Iowans live in cities. - Des Moines was ranked 1st richest metropolitan area and 2nd happiest in the country (not sure by what metric or source here, my apologies) I feel pretty good about the intellectual capacity of my neighbors. Disclaimer: I've lived outside the state for 4 years now, primarily in Chicago and now South Florida. If the weather was nicer, I'd consider making it my permanent home.
- pyoung 14y ago
  I find it depressing that 'voting Democratic' is used as anecdotal evidence of intellectualism. I am not disagreeing with your point, just merely pointing out how absurd it is. While I am an ardent Democrat, I long for a day when we can have two parties that run on solid policy proposals, rather than the current "that party is batsh*t crazy, so I am voting for the other guy".
  - pyre 14y ago
    I may be wrong, but I feel like (Christian) religion is at the forefront of the anti-intellectual 'movement.' The more fundamentalist you are about your religion, the more likely you are to vote Republican as they pander to the religious crowd. I can see how "Voting Democrat" could be seen as a barometer for intellectualism, but I agree that it's a flawed metric.
- lallysingh 14y ago
  That video was lovely! I see your point. I assumed Iowa was similar to what I saw about Southern VA. My apologies. I don't know anything about Iowa. I still maintain that many anti-intellectual areas exist, and that they have the effects I mentioned earlier. If Iowa isn't one of them, then I'm happy for them.
bane 14y ago
It's great to see so many NoVA people here on HN. It gives lots of hope that NoVA is a great place for the kind of audience that HN caters to. There's actually a fair amount of startups here...but for whatever reason they don't seem to rate high enough with the SV/NYC scene to get lots of coverage. I think with the pretty good schools, something like the highest per-capita population with college degrees in the country, a very large government, biotech, commercial and publishing market and significant investment in fairly decently priced office space, stable housing prices (relatively) and hopefully improving public transit and being just on the southern end of the NoVA<->Boston corridor, one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse populations in the world it's surprising that it's not more prominent. D.C.'s also a great cultural scene, ridiculous museums, and the ring right outside of the city is a fantastic place for young single folks to live with the city center developing in a great way. But yeah, once you get too far south or south west you end up in confederate flag waiving anti-intellectual redneck country pretty fast. Strangely, there's a ton of West Coast companies with fairly large office presences here, but a deeper dive into them and you'll find they are almost exclusively sales offices -- sometimes with a services and integration team, but almost no serious development.

pnathan 14y ago

I can't agree with this hard enough. There is an anti-smarts culture in parts of the US (in passing, this may not be about geography, but about social circles you/we exist in), and if you demonstrate your smarts, you are... other & alien. Things like having hobbies outside of a particular circumscribed area (sports, cars, $current_music, etc.) are the province of the "others". And when you drink from the cup of knowledge in an area, it simply becomes hard to stay in that place. So we leave. We seek out the company of others in our particular in-group and revel in not having to be untruthful about ourselves. I'm reasonably sure this holds true about things besides intellectualism, but my readings in sociology are not close to deep enough to recite citations.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

simmons 14y ago

There certainly exist places like you describe. However, would regional urban centers like Des Moines and Omaha really fall into that category? Des Moines is no San Francisco, but I would expect it to be on the receiving side of any sort of intellectual migration away from rural, economically depressed areas.

27182818284 14y ago
Yes, but it is in two parts. You migrate to a place like Omaha or Des Moines from rural places like you said, but then after an education people traditionally left those places for the even bigger cities like the Twin Cities, etc. That said, effort by various colleges and city governments has gone into the brain drain problem for years so the drain has been declining. You can see marketing campaigns like http://lifeisright.com/ http://lifeisright.com/ for various cities to try to promote staying put.

BobbyH 14y ago

I also grew up in Northern Virginia. I now live in NYC. I hadn't considered the broader effects of this sort of migration, until I recently read "The Big Sort", a brilliant book written in 2009 that describes how like-minded people are "sorting" themselves through migration. One way to quantify this effect is to look at the number of "landslide counties", i.e. the number of counties in the US that preferred a presidential candidate by more than 20%. You can see a map showing how these landslide counties have sharply increased here (the top map is from 1976, and the bottom map is from 2004): http://www.thebigsort.com/maps.php http://www.thebigsort.com/maps.php What's happening is that voters are moving with their feet to be with more like-minded people. This skews many counties towards a particular direction (either Republican or Democrat). Further, as counties tip one way, the minority viewpoint gets suppressed in just the way you described (e.g. if you're a Democrat, why bother voting for Governor in Texas). One thing that surprised me in the book is that not every state is homogenous. The author lives in Austin, so he spends a lot of time talking about how all the liberals move to Austin (and conservatives move out). So even in the bastion of Republican Texas, there is a liberal enclave. Looking at Des Moines, it seems that Des Moines is a similar liberal enclave. For instance, in 2008, Des Moines, Iowa voted for Obama over McCain with a 23% margin: http://www.city-data.com/elec08/DES-MOINES-IOWA.html http://www.city-data.com/elec08/DES-MOINES-IOWA.html So it seems like there are a fair number of liberal enclaves in conservative states. To give another example,"The urban core of Kansas City consistently votes Democratic in Presidential elections": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City,_Missouri#National_political_conventions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City,_Missouri#National_... So even if it's true that "Silicon X'es can only happen in liberal pro-intellectual areas", there seem to be enough liberal enclaves in conservative states that Silicon X'es could possibly arise.

tareqak 14y ago
Sounds like someone sufficiently motivated enough could use something like https://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/elections/data https://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/elections/da... to predict or promote more Silicon X'es. Caveat: just looking at one characteristic of a given geographic location (voter preference) is definitely limiting though. Edit: added the caveat.

sputknick 14y ago

My family is all from South western VA (250+ years), I grew up in Northern VA, I still live in Northern VA. I agree with you 100% and it breaks my heart to say so. I would love nothing more than to move back down there to raise my family, but my talents would just be wasted. I think this, much more so than "greed" is what is leading to the growing income inequality in America. The intelligent people are living with intelligent people and having intelligent babies, who grow up to have intelligent babies with the intelligent kids down the street. I'm still not sure if this is a bug or a feature.

firefoxman1 14y ago

It's amazing how different Northern VA people are, to the point they don't want to be associated with the southern half of the state. It doesn't really seem to be a North vs. South attitude either, it's more of an intellectual vs good-ol-values battle. It seems like that's the main reason why where I live in Southern VA has all of about 2 tech companies and zero startups, and Blacksburg (right next door) even being home to the state's largest technical universities has very limited startup activity.

crwls 14y ago

Native Iowan, here. And my first post, long-time lurker. I sincerely believe your "anti-intellectual" comment to be misguided and uninformed. For a quick and entertaining rebuttal, I'd direct you to this NPR youtube video titled "Iowa Nice": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLZZ6JD0g9Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLZZ6JD0g9Y If you'd rather not watch the clip, here are a few things you might not have known about Iowa that may cause you to revise your previous assumption (or not, and they may/may not be extrapolated to other midwest communities): - Iowa has voted Democratic in 5 out of 6 presidential elections (now 6 out of 7). - Iowa was the second (or third) state to legalize gay marriage. - First woman lawyer in the US emanated from Iowa. - 4 out 5 Iowans live in cities. - Des Moines was ranked 1st richest metropolitan area and 2nd happiest in the country (not sure by what metric or source here, my apologies) I feel pretty good about the intellectual capacity of my neighbors. Disclaimer: I've lived outside the state for 4 years now, primarily in Chicago and now South Florida. If the weather was nicer, I'd consider making it my permanent home.

pyoung 14y ago
I find it depressing that 'voting Democratic' is used as anecdotal evidence of intellectualism. I am not disagreeing with your point, just merely pointing out how absurd it is. While I am an ardent Democrat, I long for a day when we can have two parties that run on solid policy proposals, rather than the current "that party is batsh*t crazy, so I am voting for the other guy".
- pyre 14y ago
  I may be wrong, but I feel like (Christian) religion is at the forefront of the anti-intellectual 'movement.' The more fundamentalist you are about your religion, the more likely you are to vote Republican as they pander to the religious crowd. I can see how "Voting Democrat" could be seen as a barometer for intellectualism, but I agree that it's a flawed metric.
lallysingh 14y ago
That video was lovely! I see your point. I assumed Iowa was similar to what I saw about Southern VA. My apologies. I don't know anything about Iowa. I still maintain that many anti-intellectual areas exist, and that they have the effects I mentioned earlier. If Iowa isn't one of them, then I'm happy for them.

bane 14y ago

It's great to see so many NoVA people here on HN. It gives lots of hope that NoVA is a great place for the kind of audience that HN caters to. There's actually a fair amount of startups here...but for whatever reason they don't seem to rate high enough with the SV/NYC scene to get lots of coverage. I think with the pretty good schools, something like the highest per-capita population with college degrees in the country, a very large government, biotech, commercial and publishing market and significant investment in fairly decently priced office space, stable housing prices (relatively) and hopefully improving public transit and being just on the southern end of the NoVA<->Boston corridor, one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse populations in the world it's surprising that it's not more prominent. D.C.'s also a great cultural scene, ridiculous museums, and the ring right outside of the city is a fantastic place for young single folks to live with the city center developing in a great way. But yeah, once you get too far south or south west you end up in confederate flag waiving anti-intellectual redneck country pretty fast. Strangely, there's a ton of West Coast companies with fairly large office presences here, but a deeper dive into them and you'll find they are almost exclusively sales offices -- sometimes with a services and integration team, but almost no serious development.